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LOS ANGELES : Singaporean Ng Chin Han's ears must have been burning. After all, it’s not everyday when your big-name director, who also happens to be one of your heroes, says to a roomful of international journalists in Los Angeles (fellow Singaporean, yours truly, included), that you have “a great presence which was really exactly what the character required”.
Those were the exact words Christopher Nolan, the highly acclaimed director of "The Dark Knight" said in response to this reporter’s question about why he chose to cast Ng, out of all the Asian actors in the world, in the most anticipated movie of the year.
"There was a long process of auditioning a lot of different actors and Chin just seemed very right for the part,” said the 37-year-old behind Batman Begins (2005) and the modern classic, Memento (2000). “Batman is played by an Englishman (Christian Bale is Welsh). The Joker (Heath Ledger) is played by an Australian. It really is quite an international cast."
As hearts all over the island swell with nationalistic pride, it is the hearts of his parents that Ng is most thankful for. After all, they were the ones who gave him their blessing to fly back to audition in Los Angeles, where he’s been based for five years, almost immediately after touching down in Singapore on a trip to visit his sick father.
"This is indicative of their support all this while for my chosen profession," the 38-year-old actor-director told TODAY. "But I don’t think they knew exactly the scale of the film until they watched Batman Begins on DVD at my sister’s house. That’s when they exclaimed to me: ‘You’re in the sequel to that film?"
The Singapore boy, who now goes by the name of Chin Han in Hollywood (does that now make “Han” his surname?), shares scenes with Hollywood’s finest - Bale, Morgan Freeman, Ledger, Gary Oldman - in "The Dark Knight".
He plays the sizable role of Hong Kong mogul Lau, trumping pretty boy Edison Chen’s "Guy at Security Desk #2" two-second role.
It is an incredible accomplishment for the man best known to Singaporean audiences as the grandson to Margaret Chan’s "crush him like a cockroach" matriarch in 1994’s TV calamity, "Masters of the Sea".
And we are not the only ones in awe. "The biggest thrill after saying hi to Chris (Nolan) was the journey to my trailer. It was like walking down the Avenue of the Stars, as you walk past the other trailers and see all these amazing names on the doors. Then you reach your own trailer. It was heady and surreal," said Ng, adding that he had to refrain himself from taking photographs like a tourist on set.
"You dream of the moment but when it actually happens to you, it’s not exactly how you imagine it - it’s better." - TODAY/ra
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